Movie Scenes That Totally Ripped Off Other Films

Quentin Tarantino has never been shy about using other movies as inspiration for his own work. In a 1994 interview, he infamously quipped, "I steal from every single movie ever made." He'd finish that thought by stating, "Great artists steal, they don't do homages."

If you haven't seen Tarantino's 2003 kung fu fantasia Kill Bill Vol. 1, you should know it's an epic genre mashup that refracts anime flicks, classic thrillers, and grindhouse greats through the prism of an epic martial arts film. Some might even say that Kill Bill Vol. 1 "homages" the hell out of several classics from each of those genres (i.e. Bruce Lee's kickass yellow jumpsuit from Game of Death), and Hiroyuki Nakano's 1998 samurai confection Samurai Fiction is most certainly amongst them.

It was the silhouetted opening titles to Nakano's samurai story that no doubt inspired one of Kill Bill Vol 1.'s most creative flourishes, the blue-lit backdrop that silhouettes the sword fight near the end of the Bride's bloody House of Blue Leaves showdown with The Crazy 88. Though Tarantino changes the color from Nakano's original red and manages to work the startling visuals into his narrative (brilliantly undercutting the bloodshed with a flawlessly executed moment of slapstick humor), the influence is simply impossible to ignore. Still, Kill Bill Vol. 1 arguably bests the Samurai Fiction moment that inspired it in terms of style, scale, and choreography.

Sorry, Star Wars fans, but even George Lucas did some "borrowing" while building his galaxy far, far away. Over the years, Lucas has made no big secret of his love for the Saturday morning science fiction/adventure serials he devoured in his youth — or about how big an influence those serials played in crafting some of his most famous cinematic creations, Indiana Jones and the Star Wars universe in particular.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the live-action adaptation of Flash Gordon from the 1930s inspired Star Wars' opening crawl — you know, the one that gets us up to date with what's happening in the battle between The Galactic Empire and the Rebellion. Once again, this is a case of "inspired" translating to outright thievery, with Lucas even using said crawl to introduce each Star Wars film as a new episode. Still, while it might have been a ripoff, there's really no need to hate on Lucas for this. The influence was obvious to anyone from his generation when Star Wars came out, and all these years later, it's impossible to imagine the franchise without that opening crawl.

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy has been lauded as one of the greatest fantasy film franchises in history. Of course, the franchise's noble legacy is inextricably tied to J.R.R. Tolkien's epically scaled, wildly original books that first saw Frodo and friends hit the road to Mordor.

As in Tolkien's books, one of the film trilogy's more memorable scenes comes in The Two Towers, and finds Sam, Frodo, and Gollum first laying eyes on the gargantuan gates to Sauron's nefarious realm. In that beautifully visualized shot, the weary travelers come to a rocky precipice, then nervously peer over the edge to find the ominous gate and heavily armed enemy soldiers marching along in formation.

While the moment undoubtedly hews close to the text in Tolkien's book, the scene in the film was just as certainly cribbed from another cinematic fantasy: 1939's The Wizard Oz. The Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow share a strikingly similar moment of discovery when they first come across the Wicked Witch's castle, which is presented in a shot that finds the heroes nervously peering over some rocks to see the gate. And wouldn't you know it, soldiers are marching by in formation. Hey, at least Jackson stole from a legend, right?

In the history of time-travel cinema, few movies have packed as many big ideas into a package as entertaining as Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future. Upon its release in 1985, the Steven Spielberg-produced film was a box office smash that immediately worked its way into the pop culture zeitgeist while satisfying film critics won over by the film's ingenious plotting and crowd-pleasing originality.

Still, not every scene in Back to the Future is wholly original. There's actually a pseudo-iconic moment in the film's daring final act that was more than a little "inspired by" a classic from Hollywood's silent era. The moment in question finds lovable mad scientist Doc Brown attempting to reattach a cable to the soon-to-be electrified clock tower. In the process, he dangles high above the ground, desperately trying to pull himself up as the clock's hands tick away.

Savvy filmgoers no doubt noted that almost the exact same thing happened to silent era icon Harold Lloyd in his 1923 masterpiece Safety Last! — though Lloyd didn't have potential paradoxes and a raging lightning storm to deal with. And for proof that Zemekis deliberately lifted this moment from Lloyd, rewatch the opening minutes of Back to the Future — among all those ticking clocks, you'll find one with a little Lloyd figurine dangling from the minute hand.

While stealing from other live-action movies remains a relatively common occurrence, stealing from animated films has proven a little trickier, if only because the visual possibilities are boundless in animated worlds. That's especially true of anime films that push the limits of reality well beyond "what did I just see" territory. Still, it's no surprise that a true visionary like Christopher Nolan would find a way to bring one of those moments into a (sort of) real world setting.

You no doubt remember the moment in Nolan's Inception when, in a dream-crafted city scape, Cobb guides his young protege Ariadne into a walkway that becomes blocked by a giant glass wall. Undeterred by the unexpected event, Ariadne places her hand to the glass, shattering the wall into a million little pieces, and walks on through. It's a skillfully crafted moment that Nolan uses to bolster the unlimited possibilities in a shared-dream state while also building character attributes into the narrative.

It's also a moment he no doubt ripped from another Satoshi Kon anime, 2006's Paprika. That film (which also happens to feature a narrative about people entering each other's dream states, not to mention a super trippy hallway scene) eventually finds its young protagonist walking through a dreamscape, encountering a glass wall, and delicately touching her hand to the glass, shattering it. We still love Inception, but it's pretty clear that Nolan "borrowed" this moment for his own dream.  

When Ridley Scott filmed his sci-fi classic Blade Runner, simply ripping off a scene from another film wasn't quite enough — he actually took footage that was shot for another movie and inserted into his own for the film's closing scene — particularly that soaring shot over the wilderness that comes before we find Deckard and Rachael driving off into the sunset.  

Hardcore film buffs may have recognized the scenery in Blade Runner, as they'd already seen it on the road to the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick's terrifying masterpiece The Shining. As is often the case, Kubrick shot far more footage than he needed, eventually leaving the b-roll leftovers sitting idly in the Warner Bros. vaults.

That proved a fortuitous turn of events for Scott, who found himself scrambling to shoot a new ending for his film at the behest of dissatisfied studio execs. Strapped for cash and running out of time, Scott turned to Kubrick, who donated his extra coverage from The Shining, and Scott's backers got their happier (though generally maligned) ending. Ain't Hollywood grand?